4/23/2014 10:14:07 AM

http://youtu.be/sI5tsetrbpA

4/23/2014 11:15:47 AM

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/after-successful-landing-spacex-to-sue-air-force-to-compete-for-launch-contracts/

I hope Space X beats the crap out of them in court. Probably not going to happen but one can hope.

4/26/2014 7:57:27 AM

http://prezi.com/bmvgr0iu5u7c/deep-space-habitat-concept-demonstrators-directors-lunch/

This included some detail on how they would configure the insides of the units... the SLS derived version is pretty awesome... i can't get over how massive the thing would be.



(wraith... involved with this kind of thing still?)

4/28/2014 10:46:47 AM

http://spacearchitect.org/pubs/AIAA-2013-5433.pdf

and here is a neat article relating to the study of the internal arrangement of the habitats... one of the main factors in the internal arrangement was making sure the places where the astronauts spent the most time (crew cabins) were in the deepest part of the habitat surrounded by the most material to help protect against radiation.

4/29/2014 7:44:59 AM

^^My work detail in the Deep Space Habitat group ended in February but I still help out giving tours and stuff over there if they need a hand. If any of you folks happen to find yourself in Huntsville I could probably swing a tour of the ground-based SLS-derived mockup. Although right now it isn't more than a leftover piece of SLS core stage outer ring that happened to be lying around at KSC (see pic below)

^I know Brand, the first author posted in that PDF. He's a real nice guy. He works in the Advanced Concepts office, they do really crazy prototype design stuff there.

Here is how the actual CS section would fit into the rest of the space station design and dock with Orion:


Here is how big it is in real life.:


[Edited on April 29, 2014 at 6:05 PM. Reason : ]

4/29/2014 6:03:04 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/30/us-astronauts-should-use-trampolines-to-get-into-space-russian-official-says/?intcmp=latestnews

This mess with Russia is now putting our only ride to our 100 billion dollar outpost in jeopardy...

4/30/2014 9:52:53 AM

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/spacex-says-rocket-purchases-violate-russian-sanctions-gets-injunction/

Quote :

"You should also post Musk's EPIC tweets in reply to Rogozin's: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461279062837968897 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461283368693669888"

5/1/2014 12:42:19 PM

i gotta say.. i don't think russia is actually going to cut off our ride to the ISS, but this is perfect timing for Elon/SpaceX.

5/1/2014 1:59:52 PM

Im honestly not sure they wont. If they really want to get back at us, that would be the perfect way.

Granted its a big hit for them financially, but thats the tradeoff. It would kill our ISS involvement.

So, the next question is, how fast can SpaceX operationalize it?

5/1/2014 6:20:22 PM

If they kill our ISS involvement, they will have to abandon it too. There is no way it could survive in the short term without our logistics, resupply, etc. Both countries are too heavily invested in it to abandon it. (unless shit went WAY downhill)

to answer the question about spaceX... NASA still says 2017 earliest, however there are meetings happening in the short term that might bump commercial crew financially and move the schedule slightly to the left. (we will see)
(from another website from someone "in the know")

Quote :

"Quick note. Meeting called. Title: Immediate advancement review for crewed dragon. Don't know much more until the meeting but the title makes it obvious. Bolden will be attending."

5/1/2014 7:16:52 PM

Chugging along with SLS -- at this point we are further along than we were with Ares I. Looks like the SLS fuel/oxidizer tank test stand construction will begin this month.

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/structural-test-stands.html#.U2k6YBC9Z8E

5/6/2014 3:44:21 PM

looks like the SLS will be sitting there ready while the europeans are still working on the service module for Orion, causing a significant delay of the first mission.

5/8/2014 10:19:43 AM

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/russia-says-it-may-abandon-space-station-by-2020-over-ukraine-conflict/

I called it! Bye bye ISS (Im suprised they didnt find a way do it sooner).

So how much is the GPS bit? Or does it just break it in Russia? Not a big deal I figure outside of there.

5/13/2014 8:03:53 PM

^2020 is the currently agreed upon date for end of life anyway... i guess the US wanted to extend it's use to 2024

(of course it seems like a waste to dump a functional station that cost 150 billion dollars to construct and operate that soon either way)

and lets also keep in mind this is a quote from the same guy who tweeted that we should use a trampoline to get to the space station

[Edited on May 14, 2014 at 9:10 AM. Reason : ]

5/14/2014 8:53:06 AM

SpaceX is working on a BFR (big fucking rocket) that will dwarf the SLS (if it is ever finished... not a knock on the engineering (wraith)... just the politics.)

of the order of over 200 metric tons. (SLS's first iteration is somewhere around 70 metric tons.)

This is going to be done with the Raptor engine they are producing.

5/27/2014 9:44:01 PM

^Just for clarification, only the Block I crewed SLS vehicle is 70 tons. The largest iteration, Block II cargo is currently designed at 130 tons. But yeah, like you said, that is only if things don't get in the way and delay the schedule indefinitely.

5/28/2014 9:39:34 AM

Does anyone really seriously endorse either ending the ISS or the SLS program?

If we go reusable rockets, then we have to learn to do BEO missions with smaller payloads.
It's not complicated, just really hard. Send up modules and assemble them in orbit.
SLS is the reverse of that options. SpaceX wants to strap multiple reusable lower stages together.
That might be a viable mix of the two different strategies, but I feel like the problem of launch rate isn't solved.
so you Launch the Falcon Heavy with reusable boosters than can be flown again in 1 day.
Problem is, you have no customer available in 1 day. We will not fly 365 Heavy launches in a year.

So exactly what problem are they trying to solve?
Breaking up our missions into standard-size packages makes sense considering what we've been doing.
Commodity launch markets make sense considering what we've been doing.
Shifting more of the burden to LEO activities makes sense considering what we've been doing.

I can mentally picture the SLS ecosystem that people are gunning for.
It just sounds really expensive and wasteful.
More importantly, I don't see it connecting to any grand vision of opening up space to the private sector.

[Edited on May 29, 2014 at 12:12 PM. Reason : rant ]

5/29/2014 12:11:14 PM

SpaceX is unveiling their first manned Dragon capsule tonight... going to watch at 10pm

5/29/2014 12:56:49 PM

^Where can you watch?

5/29/2014 7:21:57 PM

http://new.livestream.com/spacex/DragonV2

5/29/2014 9:16:08 PM

holy shit... this is old but Miles O'Brien had his damn arm amputated after an accident

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/25/health/miles-obrien-amputation/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(not a transporter accident)

5/29/2014 10:02:53 PM

ok it's live now.

5/29/2014 10:22:31 PM

Propulsive landing ability, reusability, sleek retractable controls (straight out of star trek), deployable landing legs, and FINS

3-d printed engines for landing and abort (super dracos)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZJLAo6VRtA&feature=share&t=35m50s

[Edited on May 29, 2014 at 10:49 PM. Reason : ]

5/29/2014 10:39:41 PM

and an unrelated night-time morpheus video (sorry wraith)

http://www.space.com/26052-prototype-lander-makes-first-nighttime-free-flight-video.html

5/29/2014 10:55:43 PM

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/05/spacex-lifts-the-lid-dragon-v2-crew-spacecraft/

5/30/2014 8:48:55 AM

recent report on the status of the future of manned space flight came out today. this is a pretty good summary of the report. it gives good reasons why human space flight is important, and why our current capability driven driven policy won't pass muster.

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/xpedio/groups/depssite/documents/webpage/deps_088247.pdf

here is a link to the full report:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=34856.0;attach=586933

[Edited on June 4, 2014 at 6:04 PM. Reason : ]

6/4/2014 6:00:58 PM

NASA tests mars landing technology... ends in massive failure due to parachute problems.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/06/28/nasa-plans-test-mars-flying-saucer/?intcmp=latestnews&intcmp=latestnews
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/06/ldsd-rocket-powered-saucer-landing-technology/

[Edited on June 28, 2014 at 10:33 PM. Reason : ]

6/28/2014 10:31:44 PM

i dunno if a bonus test is a massive failure but oh well

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

6/29/2014 11:17:44 AM

yeah i know. overall the test was a success, but i was just being dramatic.

6/29/2014 1:36:59 PM

Any bets on how far over $2.8 Billion this will go?
http://uncovercalifornia.com/content/2411-nasa-approves-28-billion-contract-build-world-s-most-powerful-rocket

7/7/2014 3:27:55 PM

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/07/45-tranquility-one-small-step-bright-future/

One small step for (a) man...

45 years ago today the first (of twelve) men stepped foot on our closest celestial neighbor. 45 years ago. The last time we stepped foot on the moon was in 1972. Most of the people on TWW were not alive when anyone walked on the moon.

7/20/2014 1:55:16 PM

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/apollo-11-turns-45-a-lunar-landing-anniversary-retrospective/

Ars put together an awesome photo college for this.

7/21/2014 9:44:47 AM

http://youtu.be/CQnR5fhCXkQ

space x soft landed their falcon 9 first stage in the ocean during their last launch and just released the video...

7/22/2014 6:10:06 PM

http://www.space.com/26701-nasa-mars-2020-rover-explained-infographic.html



NASA's Mars 2020 rover will be based on Curiosity and will also land via sky-crane... Will have a different scientific package.

7/31/2014 10:01:29 PM

thanks for posting all the images!

I didnt know Curiosity's wheels had cracked. Is this a major design difference from in the past?

8/1/2014 8:23:12 AM

^Curiosity is a lot bigger than any of the previous rovers, so the wheels would have undergone a lot more stress even in Mars' reduced gravity. Although I don't have too much experience with rovers so I can't say for sure.

8/1/2014 10:00:48 AM

from what i understand about the cracked wheels, it's not a critical failure... it just lets some dust through but the structure of the wheels is sound.

8/1/2014 1:40:33 PM

I'll post this here too...

in December, the first launch of NASA's new Orion space capsule is slated to happen... This is a test mission (unmanned) that will put Orion into a higher than normal earth orbit to test the heat shield as it enters the atmosphere at a greater speed (among a host of other things.

Orion will normally be launched with NASA's new "OMG MEGAROCKET" SLS (attn: Wraith) but this will be launched on a Delta IV heavy, which is our current largest rocket in the "fleet."

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/08/eft-1-orion-morning-launch-december-4/

8/9/2014 12:01:44 PM

http://www.space.com/26776-nasa-flying-saucer-aerobrakes-from-supersonic-speed-video.html

the most interesting part of the video to me was how well the reverse boosters stopped the spinning

8/25/2014 9:18:10 PM

Quote :

"^Curiosity is a lot bigger than any of the previous rovers, so the wheels would have undergone a lot more stress even in Mars' reduced gravity."

It also has like 6 wheels and 1/3 of Earth gravity.
Compared to other Mars rovers, it's still suffering a much greater load, but it's relatively conservative by Earth standards.
The real driving factors are keeping the weight of the wheels low and the rocky nature of the terrain.

The surface of Mars seems to be a mixture between fine-grain get-your-ass-stuck sand and perilously rocky crap.
I don't imagine that it would be extremely difficult to walk over, but Earth seems to be better for joy riding, even before humans turned it into a parking lot.

[Edited on August 26, 2014 at 8:54 AM. Reason : ]

8/26/2014 8:53:37 AM

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/nasa-gives-the-go-ahead-to-the-worlds-most-powerful-roc-1627703747/all

Glad to see SLS still moving onward and upward! Its further than Ares got and that was very demoralizing for me when it was canceled. Lets hope that whoever comes into office in 2016 doesn't cancel it .

8/28/2014 10:35:09 AM

Do you know why it was delayed from Dec 2017? I've heard the holdup was on the part of Orion, and not the SLS side of things... I also read at one point they were mulling a flight with a dummy load because Orion was behind schedule (but i don't think it will happen that way... just an idea someone floated.)

8/28/2014 4:07:53 PM

Can confirm that it is all Orion. I don't know much of the specifics of it since as far as I'm concerned, Orion is a point mass at the end of the vehicle but a number of folks I work with have mentioned that Orion is causing delays to the work they are doing and generally making things more difficult than they should be. The strange thing is that Orion should be years ahead of SLS since it started way back in the Constellation days.

8/28/2014 5:33:09 PM

well this weren't so

Quote :

"moving onward and upward!"

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/08/exploding_just_4_seconds_after.html

8/28/2014 5:42:38 PM

^Not sure what you mean... that doesn't really have anything to do with SLS aside from being designed on Redstone Arsenal.

8/28/2014 5:48:22 PM

Wasn't meant to mean anything on SLS. Just recent event. Related topic...if you will

8/28/2014 6:06:59 PM

SLS is doomed to kill someone. Those SRB's are deathtraps, totally unsuitable for manned missions. The idea of lighting two unstoppable firecrackers and then praying nothing goes wrong for two whole minutes with no means of escape is something dreamed up by madmen, not engineers.

9/2/2014 11:15:21 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_abort_modes

9/3/2014 8:03:11 AM

Not to mention hundreds of successful shuttle missions featuring SRBs.

9/3/2014 10:06:24 AM